To Crush and Destroy
by anmah
Summary: Deep down, she knows...She knows...All that he is capable of. Does she truly wish to destroy it all for him?


**Disclaimer**: I do not own MM

**Prologue**: Deep down, she knows...She knows...All that he is capable of. Does she truly wish to destroy it all for him?

* * *

She had always been an overachiever. Anyone who had met her, who had simply spoken even two words to her, was in the knowledge of that. 

She had had a thirst for success, for recognition, since the day she had been born; the day she had been cradled gently and cautiously within the arms of the doctor who had delivered her, "She's a beautiful baby girl..." he had commented, beads of sweat apparent on his tan skin, while handing her young self into the arms of her mother, who smiled warmly at her newborn in return, heavier beads of sweat present upon her own, lighter skin.

Her father, passed since a long time ago, had been present as well, and her mother had told her how he could not stop smiling. His aquamarine eyes, the ones she had inherited from him, had glowed incessantly the whole time she had been held within her mother's arms... -

...But neither the doctor, a smart, caring, and talented individual, nor her own parents, could have ever known. Never; what lay behind those large, aquamarine orbs of this newborn infant that had come into the world that day.

* * *

She had grown, learned, paid rapt attention in school and raised her hand numerous times within the classroom - used to being the First; the Best; the Successful One; good at everything she did and everything she tried. She relished the compliments she recevied, especially from teachers and professors, and prided herself in being "the one to go to" for her friends when it came to academics - she allowed herself to be submerged head first into the cognizance that society so easily bathed her in. It all seemed like a predilection opening up her arms and throwing itself into them heartily. It did seem like that - that is, until _he_ arrived - 

It had been a crisp morning in the middle of spring, and they were standing outside of their apartment building, the one that they had moved to two years ago after her father's passing. A car was standing in front of the complex's doors, from where a large, beefy man with a growing blond beard was unloading a number of bags. One of the car doors opened, and a small foot descended onto the concrete surface, followed by the rest of the body, a body of a young boy with shocking blond hair similar to that of the large man. He looked up, he had large eyes the shade of tangerine, and the moment he spotted them a large smile crawled onto his face. He made his way towards them in a way that was not a run but not a jog either.

He stopped a foot in front of them, his happy eyes fixated on them both. She stared. Her mother, standing closely behind her, was smiling.

_"Diana, this is Martin, Mr. Mystery's son, say hello." her mother chided gently, placing a tender hand on her daughter's small shoulder._

_Diana glanced at her mother, then apprehensively at the strange new boy who stood in front of her, a large grin on his face through which she could see the few holes from baby teeth whom had bid their farewell. Her eyes looked downwards and travelled up, taking a complete visual of him, noticing his baggy, dusty blue jeans and the bright yellow, rumpled T-shirt on which was an animated face of a green alien - not to mention the utterly messy bright blond hair; she had been too taken aback, and perhaps a bit frightful, to make eye contact with him at that time, "..Um..Hello." her hands lay limp at her sides. Behind the boy, she could see his father getting out the last of his and his son's bags.  
_

_The boy, Martin, wasn't it? Simply continued to grin despite her weak and hesitant greeting. He took a few steps closer and casually raised a hand out for her to shake, "Nice ta meet ya, Diana."_

_She blinked at first, but slowly reached out and took the offered hand, tightening her grip and raising her arm up and down - her mother let out a breathe she had not even been aware she was holding. Martin's burly father, who Diana actually quite liked, approached them from behind Martin, placing his own two hands atop his son's shoulders, "I apologize for his appearance, the boy simply doesn't know how to dress himself properly." he sheepishly replied.  
_

_**That's probably because he didn't have anyone to teach him...**Diana had thought logically, not even dwelling for a second within the emotional aspect of what had come into her mind at that time - she just thought of it as another step towards her analytical thinking skills, another accomplishment that was to give birth to many more in the near future - that was all it was to her.  
_

_Diana's first impression of the tangerine eyed boy with the messy blond hair had been; odd, strange, and somewhat friendly - yet she refused to think of him as her future brother - which of course, as they both knew today, he later became._

At that time, long ago, when the two had first met as young children around the age of ten, her eyes had simply diverted from his all the time, refusing to look into them, and yet...When she finally had...

_"Diana! Diana!" she cringed at the sound of her name being called, yet again, for the fifth time that day, instinctively she grasped her books closer to her chest aggrivatedly; an oh-too-familiar arm slung itself around her petite shoulders, a bright grin protruding her senses with its unimaginable capacity, "yo, sis!"_

_She looked at him, eyes narrowed, "What is it now, Martin?" was her irritated question._

_"Aww, come on now Di, that's no way to talk to your brother..!"_

_Step-brother. She corrected mentally, but chose not to voice it aloud in front of her two friends, whom were staring with wide eyes - it did not take Martin long to notice the two standing there._

_"Well, hello ladies," he greeted with yet another bright smile which he probably hoped was charming, "how are we today?"_

_"Martin..!" she enunciated loudly, on purpose, and took hold of one of his ears within a tight grip, "leave them alone."_

_"Aww, come on Di, live a little, no wonder you don't have a boyfriend." he commented knowledgably, giving her a smarmy look._

_Blushing furiously, she yanked forcefully on his ear and began walking in the opposite direction, "Hey! What do you think your-Oww! Di! That hurts!"_

_When they were finally a good distance away from her two friends, behind a wall isolated from almost everyone's view, Diana turned on her step-brother for six months, "Martin! Do you have to be such an obnoxious, impolite-"_

_"I was just being friendly." he cut in innocently, sitting cross legged on the ground._

_"No you weren't! Stop flirting with my friends so shamelessly!"_

_"Hey! It wasn't shameless, it was cool, calm, and collected."_

_"As if!" letting out an irritated growl, Diana leaned against the wall, arms crossed and eyes closed, "your so difficult, Martin!"_

_"No, I just know how to have fun."_

_"Among practically nothing else."_

_"Hey!"_

_"Please Martin, if you devoted more time to studying instead of trying to pick up girls, you could actually make something of yourself!" she insisted, shooting him a wide eyed, upset look._

_"I can't help it; studying is boring, girls - besides you, of course - are fun." he stated simply, placing his arms behind his head casually and leaning against the wall as well, eyes shut._

_"Studying isn't boring! If you actually tried it for once-"_

_"Did. Boring."_

_"Ugh! You are so...Impossible!" she squeezed her eyes shut and raised her head towards the sky, aggravated._

_"Heh, bet ya aren't used to it, huh Di?" this response, surprising her, caused her eyes to open._

_"What?" she stared at him and - abruptly - he looked up, making striking eye contact with her, causing her to freeze where she stood -_

_"You aren't used to the "obnoxious", "impolite", "shameless", and "difficult", are ya, Di?" he was talking to her in a way he had never done before in the time of a little over a year that they had known each other, yet he still called her 'Di', a nickname he had given her a week after they had been introduced to each other by their parents._

_"What..Do you mean, Martin?" for the first time ever, she had had a hard time coming up with what to say, the first time someone had stumped her for even a second; and for some reason, she could not look away from those large orbs of the most curious tangerine...Her step-father had once commented on the fact that Martin had inherited those from his deceased mother, he had spoken of her quite fondly as well..._

_"You aren't used to the new and unpredictable, Di," Martin explained, his tone serious and steady, completely different from his usual careless and enthusiastic chortles, "your used to the "logical" world, things that make sense to you."_

_Somehow, what Martin was saying did not seem highly unusual coming from him, as it related somewhat to his extreme obsession with all things supernatural; comicbooks about mystery and the paranormal, TV shows and movies of the same sort - if it had any kind of monster or mysterious happening, Martin was into it - that was why Diana was able to come up with a response that was, in a sense, very __Diana._

_"Well Martin, I find it difficult to be part of a world that bows down to all of that "paranormal" idiocy that seems to take place everywhere within it, or rather, that is what they'd like to believe. Almost everything that takes place, they find a way to link it to some sort of ethereal or supernatural being like Dracula or the Lockness Monster or some other nonsense like that - that's the world your from, isn't it?" she narrowed her eyes at him crossly._

_To her surprise, however, his mouth burst into a small smile. It was not his usual, wide smile that he carried just about everywhere, it was a normal sized, genuine smile. Something sparkled in his eyes, Diana thought she saw it, but perhaps it had been just her imagination, or a trick of the light..But then..._

_"We __are from two different worlds, aren't we Di? But...Mom and dad love each other, don't they? That's what brought the two of us together - that's one thing that our two worlds have in common - ..." he looked up at her, with an intense look in his eyes, "so maybe, we aren't so different, are we, Di? Maybe...Our two worlds can learn to coexist." and that's when Diana first saw it._

_It was not a simple matter, to be sure, because at first, she was uncertain of what she had realized, of what she had seen in Martin's eyes at that instant - it was...Incomprehensible, at first. Martin had gotten up from his position on the ground and given her one of those __other smiles again, "Well, better get ta the third floor Di, can't be late again or Mr. Morgan will slice and dice me, check ya later." and without another glance, he had run off._

_Her knees had given away as soon as he was out of sight, and she had crumpled onto the floor, staring after him with her own large aquamarines...And she realized, that what she had seen in his eyes, did not exist in her own._

* * *

He did not get good grades, they were horrible, in fact. He barely did well in gym, what with all of his fooling around. Math was the absolute worst, he was oblivious to fractions. Science was, ironically, the second worst; she had thought that maybe he would have been somewhat interested and have some capacity in that subject due to his internest in the paranormal - but that hope seemed utterly lost. All he seemed to do was joke, laugh, and make a fool of himself - and flirt, of course. 

They had recently moved into a new house with Martin and his father, and the two new siblings' rooms could not have been more opposite to each other. Hers consisted of soft colours and warm tones, where everything was neat and clean; the bed was always made, some of the stuffed animals that she kept were neatly arranged on top, her laundry was always in the hampers, her books always organized, everything was orderly. Martin's room, however, looked as if a tornade, a hurricane, and an earthquake had hit it all at one, in one giant amalgamate of natural disasters; clothes, comicbooks, movie and video game covers, food, and God only knows what else - strewn about everywhere atop a floor that had yet to be seen by her identical pair of aquamarines.

Their clothing styles were different too, of course. She was neat, always clean, consistently well coordinated and fashionable - though function had always been above fashion for her - if it intruded with her learning and education, she would not give it a second chance. Martin had begun with an extremely messy style as a younger kid, clothes constantly wrinkled and messy, and there always seemed to be at least one giant stain on every pair of pants or jeans that he adorned - however, admittedly, his style improved somewhat when he entered into high school - it grew cleaner, a bit neater, most likely since he realized girls did not appreciate mud stains - but it also became extremely bright and obnoxious at the same time.

They were not worlds, but universes apart from each other. Two completely different individuals. He was her complete opposite and vice versa; she consistently kept telling herself that, in the morning when she awoke, during the time she brushed her teeth, while she sat in the bus gazing out the window (a habit which she quickly altered into reading her Biology textbook) - but still...But still...

...She still could not escape it. The bothersome feeling that had manifested itself within her mind that day...The day she had seen it, that glint in his eyes...That glint that seemed to glimmer majestically within his eyes, an unknown, hidden sort of intelligence..Perhaps even, a genius.

Was it...Supposed to make her happy? Was that how sisters were meant to feel when they saw something that could positively benefit their brothers? She was not certain, but one thing was for certain...It was not _happiness _that swam in the recesses of her mind during that time...It was a strange sort of worry.

* * *

Almost immediately after that moment on that day, the day she saw it - she found herself working even harder than she had before; in class she gave invincible focus, rose her hand three times more than usual, spoke louder and clearer so that the teacher could make out every single word that she was speaking, wrote and wrote until she almost gave herself carpal tunnel syndrome, and got her assignments in two whole days before they were actually due. She studied two weeks early for her science unit test, instead of her usual one week for tests, and sat in the same spot for five hours reading up on her history. She found herself in a frenzy, a rush, her mind moving at lightning speed. She neglected her friends for a time, cancelling meetings and plans with them to continue studying, for all that seemed to matter was... 

To get better. Better. The best -

Because somehow, in some strange way, she had found her very first rival in the most unlikely person imaginable; her new step-brother, Martin Mystery.

* * *

As they grew up, their paths of education seemed to be intertwined, for after graduating the same high school they ventured into the same university, and of course, then came the Center. It was sudden and obviously unexpected; a job as an agent working to solve paranormal activity and bringing peace to the world? Diana was utterly reluctant at first, Martin was - of course - in the heaven of heavens, and dragged her along to their first mission assigned to them by M.O.M. 

The mission was almost nothing compared to those they had later on as they grew as agents, but it left her feeling satisfied with what she had accomplished, for she knew that she had done good and helped a great deal - but that feeling was once again overcome by another emotion...An emotion influenced by Martin's displays of quickness, integrity, and quick thinking during the mission - she had also seen the glint, once again, during the instant where Martin had been facing off against their opponent during the mission - some sort of psychotic scientist - with the I-Cuter in hand. She had observed his eyes meeting the scientist's head on, without fear or resistance, determination blazing like a wild fire within a forest. It was resolute and unwavering; he knew what he was going to do and how he was going to do it, and he had won. She had seen the glint then, which she found...That she was steadily coming to hate.

After that mission came others, several others, and after they found Java, Diana knew she was going to stay. She was aware that Martin had decided a long time ago that he was going to stay. As the number of missions increased, she saw the glint more and more, little by little her instinct concerning it grew and matured - she could sense it, feel it, even when she could not look at Martin's eyes or make contact with them. It appeared whenever he had someone to help, someone to face against, something to save, a situation in which things seemed dire and utterly impossible and extremely difficult, an arduous situation in which hope often seemed feeble and useless...And every time the glint appeared, she found her competitve instinct kicking in as well - wanting to race with it, compete against it, neck and neck - and defeat it, crush it with a vigor...

She found herself yearning for the place she had felt that she had lost. Steadily, she found herself developing bad - awful habits. Her annoyance with Martin increased by a mulittude, her insults and criticisms began to appear more often, and she chose to sprinkle an extra bit of sting onto them and serve them with a bit of harshness on the side...She began to compete for dominance more and more during missions, found herself racing after him, found herself yearning for the recognition once again. The feeling of being The Best.

She had always been an overachiever. Always yearned to be The Best. She was a smart girl, a quick girl, an intelligent girl...That is why it did not take her long to realize...That she secretly desired to crush her step-brother, her step-brother who was utterly kind and caring and compassionate, who always rushed to her and anyone else's rescue when they were in need, who cherished his friends more than he cherished his own life - she wanted to crush him, and his infamous, utter brilliance.

* * *

Just thought I'd attempt to convey a darker side to Diana...Tell me what you think please! Thankies. 

Anmah


End file.
